


I wont deny I'm gonna miss you when you're gone

by Runespoor



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Communication, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-23 00:05:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2526611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bombs as phone calls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I wont deny I'm gonna miss you when you're gone

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Scissor Sisters' song, "I Can't Decide."

“You are cutting it extremely close,” Jason once said, conversational. He watched avidly on the grainy flatness of his security cams, the deeper shade of the cape as Batman worked to undo the bomb. Batman’s jaw clenched, and Jason swallowed.

He bit his lip when Bruce strode away, anger more palpable than fear of the explosion.

*

The heat weights Gotham down, a sweltering blanket of lead before a storm. Crime buzzes like a horsefly, menacingly lazy, and its inevitable sting prickles at uneven intervals. Sweat sticks T-shirts and work clothes to the skin, and passer-bys cast occasional, dubious glances at the sky and its grey cover of clouds.

A bead of sweat trickles down Jason’s face, and a lock of his hair falls limply before his eyes. He blows a gust out of the corner of his lips, thoughtless and not taking his eyes away from the multitude of blinking lights on his screen. One of them is Bat-shaped – never let it be said that Jay can’t be detail-oriented when it pays (even if he’s only getting paid in thrills and a pang of satisfaction, low in the gut like a punch; that’s the only kind of payment that’s worth anything anyway) – and it slides from one red dots to another, erasing them as it goes. Each is a bomb, harmlessly disarmed.

He passed the first third a while ago, but despite the earcom that he must have picked up, Jason’s earcom is staying obstinately silent. The curl of hair falls back again, tickling, and impatiently Jason shakes his head to push it away. Of course he knew Bruce was going to be stubborn; of course Bruce is going to give in sooner or later – Jason’s not chatting and _that_ always throws Bruce off a loop – it doesn’t make the meantime any more fun. Jason’s on tenterhooks like a kid at the amusement park, mouth full of the sticky-sweet taste of cotton candy even before the first bite. He gets enough mileage of his imagination when he’s on his lonesome, and it doesn’t hold a wet candle to the real thing.

_Come on_ , he mouths at the screen. The bomb Bruce is currently disarming has been holding up better than the others, the Bat-shaped symbol superimposing with the blinking light longer than for the others. _Get over it, talk to me._

The red light disappears. Jason waits with bated breath, for a heartbeat. Another. 

Nothing, and he wants to bite his fist not to scream with frustration.

_Fuck you, you incommunicative, arrogant ass._

As the Bat makes its way to the nearest symbol, Jason glances over the rest of the screen. There’s not nearly enough remaining bombs if this turns into a contest, if Bruce makes it into a matter of stubbornness and wounded pride. 

“Are you nearly done?”

Bruce’s irritated voice, made deeper with Batman’s Gotham growl, and it makes Jason’s heart jump in his throat (edge of his seat out of his skin, ghost boy made flesh, who’d wreck the Batman’s brains out just to spread his mind out, zombie-starved), and startles a laugh out of him.

One of the surveillance cams he’s hacked into relays a glimpse of Batman driving through the night. You couldn’t tell through the Batmobile’s dark windows, but Jason’d bet he looks pissed.

“We’re never gonna be done, Bruce,” Jason informs him. “Not until, y’know. One of us bites it. I think it’s gonna be you; it was my turn last time and you cheated when it was yours. You’d call it winning, am I right? That winning streak of yours is gonna hold up long, you think? You don’t have the best track record when it comes to people dying, Batman.”

The bombs aren’t threats to Batman. Mishandled, they could raze an apartment building, set fire to the block, kill dozens. None of it’s going to happen, timed to explode at intervals that Jason would’ve cut down in half if he’d wanted to see Batman run. As it is the set-up is only an annoyance. The kind of hoops freaks like Scarecrow or Riddler used to throw at Batman before he could catch them. Even Joker, way back when.

Jason isn’t as far gone as them. 

Catwoman, more like. She didn’t use to catch Batman’s attention with bombs, but hey. From a thrill-seeker to another, Jason doesn’t think their methods are all that different.

“If you’re trying to kill me tonight, I’d say you’re not making your best effort.” 

Delighted, Jason throws a can of soda into the air (no bubbly, sugary soft drinks in Wayne Manor, it’d ruin a young man’s appetite and the white teeth befitting the heir of a fortune), and catches it back. He pops it open, with the gusto of a Bond villain toasting the hero – Bruce Wayne always was James Bond, sleek and drowning in gorgeous women at rich people events, if rather than shaken-not-stirred martini Bond asked the waitress for a Shirley Temple, with a panties-melting smile. 

Bruce is in a good mood, good enough that he’s humoring Jason, and that doesn’t happen often.

“Keeping the best for last, of course,” Jason says. “Hey, you think there’s any chance you might hurry to the next? ‘Cause I got a train to catch later, be a shame if you missed me.”

There’s a silence on the other end, then a whisper, black nomex in the night. 

“ _I already do._ ”

Jason closes his eyes and puts the cool metal of the can to his cheek. His face feels like he’s been staring at the sun and only noticing, suddenly on fire.

*

When Batman drives back to the Cave, he finds Cass still sprawled in front of the Batcomputer. She’s not, he’s gratified to see, in costume, and her twisted ankle is sensibly stretched on the footstool. It might just mean she’s been kept from unruly acrobatics by Alfred’s hawk-like attention. 

She’s amusing herself with looking through older files, and when Bruce gets out of the car she twists on the rotating chair so she can look at him with her eyebrows raised.

There’s no use trying to hide from Cassandra; she’ll get what she’ll get, and she won’t pry. Bruce is expressionless as he takes the cape off, quiet, and he can feel her watching him, her head resting on her chin.

“So he’s gone,” she says.

She doesn’t require an answer, but Bruce hums in response all the same. Habit. Most of his company doesn’t take too well to complete silence, and Cass and he are both trying to get better at conventional dialogue. Their improvement rate verges on the abysmal, and Bruce doubts whether anyone but each other could recognize what they’re doing, but mutual training is at least less disheartening than the alternative.

“For long?”

It’s a fair question. She works in Gotham too, and Red Hood’s presence tends to throw all their rhythms and plans in disarray.

“I don’t know.”

It’s her turn to “hmm”. Then, like the detective she’s training herself to be, she says, practical, “he’ll be back before long. You miss him.”

She probably meant the reverse; when she’s the one speaking, idioms sometime still trip Cassandra up. But it’s too true, so Bruce doesn’t attempt to correct her and turns away to pluck Jason’s tracker off from the cowl.

“Each other,” she amends, her voice closer to Bruce than a minute ago, and she taps him on the shoulder. When he looks at her, surprised, she hands him the Cave’s phone. “Here. Outsiders. You know he’ll be there.”

Bruce makes no move to take the phone, and Cass makes a frustrated sigh. “ _Here_ ,” she repeats, more forcefully. “It won’t bite.”

Her lips twitch like she wants to add something naughty about Jason maybe biting, but a stony look prevents her from saying the words. It’s bad enough that they both know it.

The phone is as black as Batman’s glove. Cass makes another noise, frowning. 

“Thank you,” Bruce says.


End file.
